Distinct fonts give any creative project a fresh look, but finding rights-cleared fonts can be a challenge. Today Cool Websites and Tools rounds up five sites with unique fonts that just might be perfect for your next project.

When you’re looking for the perfect font, scrolling through endless websites can be tiresome. You just want to see how a given font will look in your preferred size, with your preferred text. And that’s what Font Fling is for.

Type your text, pick a font family and then use the arrow keys to instantly browse fonts. Fonts switch over quickly, so you can rapidly skip over ones you dislike in your quest for something perfect. Note that fonts are sorted by classification, so click the box at the top-left before you start browsing to explore the different sorts of fonts before you dive in too deeply.

When you find something you like, the download button is ready for you. Everything is free for commercial usage. It simply doesn’t get easier than this.

Of course, easier isn’t always better: sometimes you want more options. All the fonts from FontFling, so far as I can tell, are coming from one site: Font Squirrel.

And there’s a good reason for this. Font Squirrel is one of the best sites on the web for anyone looking to use fonts because all fonts on that site are cleared for commercial usage.

If you don’t have luck finding the kind of font you want on Font Fling, consider going straight to the source. There’s a decent search tool, and even a tool that lets you upload an image including text to find close matches. And remember: these fonts are all cleared for commercial use, meaning you don’t have to worry about potential legal problems later on if you plan to profit from your designs.

If Font Squirrel doesn’t have quite what you’re looking for, FontPark is another site worth checking out. You’ll find a huge cache of fonts here, sorted in a variety of ways.

One caveat: the fonts offered aren’t necessarily cleared for commercial use. This means they’re fine to use for personal projects, but shouldn’t be used for any work you’re getting paid for – there could be legal consequences for violating this.

Remember Webdings? It was this weird font Microsoft included in Windows that, instead of offering characters, showed off a bunch of images. The idea was that this would let you use these icons in your documents or websites, but mostly people just typed weird sentences.

Font Awesome is like that, but actually good. It’s icon fonts for the modern web.

There are hundreds of completely scalable icons offered here, as well as instructions for using them on your website. You’ve probably seen these icons in use all over the web without realizing it, and there’s a reason for this: they’re useful. If you’re working on a website and want these icons, Font Awesome is well worth reading up on.

SprezzKeyboard (Web, iOS): Weird Fonts You Can Use on Facebook or Twitter

Have your friends ever used weird fonts on social networks, leaving you wonder how that’s even possible? They probably knew about SprezzKeyboard, which lets you type any bit of text and get a bunch of ASCII-compatible versions of the text back.

It’s weird, it’s wonderful, it’s likely to get old fast – use it sparingly.

I realize this isn’t technically a way to download fonts, but I hope you like it anyway – if not, check out one of the above sites a second time.

I keep quite a fonts around for use with Rainmeter on my Windows machines just because I like to change things up now and again and really make my computers look like they are "mine".

I try to do the same with my Android phone (GS5) and would like any help with how to find a font I like in the FlipFont format ( I believe it is .fft) Is there something out there in the webz that can convert to fft or some way I should be going about finding suitable fonts that are already available in fft? Any advise on this would be much appreciated.

Justin Pot is a technology journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He loves technology, people and nature – and tries to enjoy all three whenever possible. You can chat with Justin on Twitter, right now.